Over the years ''

The Beano ''The Beano'' (formerly ''The Beano Comic'', also known as ''Beano'') is a British anthology comic magazine created by Scottish publishing company DC Thomson. Its first issue was published on 30 July 1938, and it became the world's longest-runn ...

'' has had many different strips, ranging from comic strips to adventure strips to prose stories. Prose stories were the first to go, being phased out in 1955. Adventure strips were phased out in 1975, with the last one being ''

General Jumbo General Jumbo is a British adventure story character from the comic magazine ''The Beano''. He starred in the eponymous adventure story series, as well as the 1971 spin-off series ''Admiral Jumbo'', and was illustrated by a variety of ''Beano ...

'' (There have been unsuccessful attempts to reintroduce adventure strips with new series of ''

Billy the Cat and Katie Billy the Cat is a fictional character first published in the British comic magazine ''The Beano'' in 1967. He is a vigilante dressed in a "cat suit" who stars in his eponymous adventure story, and occasionally teams with Katie Cat. A popular ...

'' in 2003, 2005 and 2009.) The longest-running strip in ''The Beano'' is '' Dennis the Menace'', which has been running for seventy years. Other long-running strips include ''

Biffo the Bear Biffo the Bear is a fictional character from the British comic magazine ''The Beano'' who stars in the comic strip of the same name, created in 1948 by Dudley D. Watkins. He was the mascot of The Beano for several decades. Background Biffo's ...

'', ''

Minnie the Minx Minnie the Minx, whose real name is Hermione Makepeace is a comic strip character published in the British comic magazine ''The Beano''. Created and originally drawn by Leo Baxendale, she first appeared in issue 596, dated 19 December 1953, m ...

'', ''

Roger the Dodger Roger "the Dodger" Dawson is a comic strip character from the comic magazine ''The Beano''. He first appeared in his eponymous comic strip in 1953, and is one of the longest-running characters, known for his tactics of avoiding responsibility a ...

'', ''

The Bash Street Kids ''The Bash Street Kids'' is a comic strip in the British comic magazine ''The Beano''. It also appeared briefly in The Wizard as series of prose stories in 1955. The strip, created by Leo Baxendale as ''When the Bell Rings'', first appear ...

'', ''

Little Plum Little Plum (full name revealed to be Little Plum Stealing Varmint) is a British humoristic western comics series about a little Native American, originally created by Leo Baxendale and published in the magazine ''The Beano''. Concept The epo ...

'', and ''

Billy Whizz Billy Whizz is a fictional character featured in the British comic ''The Beano'', first appearing in issue 1139, dated 16 May 1964, when it replaced The Country Cuzzins. Billy, the title character, is a boy who can run extraordinarily fast. His ...

''. As of 2015, ''The Beano'' has been home to 371 different strips (with a further seventeen strips appearing in Comic Idol competitions and not later appearing in the comic). This list only features strips in the weekly comic and does not list strips that only appeared once. It also includes information about the Comic Idol winners, from 1995 to 2010.

List of humorous Beano comic strips

Source:

List of Funsize Funnies

In 2012 the Beano began printing a new section called the Funsize Funnies. This section featured short three to four panel comic strips. It originally featured old and existing Beano characters in these stories but as time went on the section began to feature celebrity parodies and wholly original characters.

List of Beano adventure strips

Ever since the first issue of The Beano until 1975 there have been adventure strips in the comic. However they continued in the Annuals and attempts were made to revive them in the comic in the 2000s with three new series of Billy the Cat and the release of The Beano Action Special.Beano Special no. 13 dated 12 May 2005 Some of these strips started off being adapted from earlier prose stories. The longest running Adventure strips are

Tom Thumb Tom Thumb is a character of English folklore. ''The History of Tom Thumb'' was published in 1621 and was the first fairy tale printed in English. Tom is no bigger than his father's thumb, and his adventures include being swallowed by a cow, tang ...

(1938–1958), Jack Flash (1949–1958),

Jimmy and his Magic Patch ''Jimmy and His Magic Patch'' was a British adventure story published in the British comics magazine ''The Beano'' in 1944. It was drawn by Dudley D. Watkins and later continued by Paddy Brennan until 1959. It starred schoolboy Jimmy Watson who ...

(1944–1959), The Iron Fish (1949–1967), Red Rory of the Eagles (1951–1962),

(1953–1975) and Billy the Cat (1967–1974, 2003–2009). Of these seven long running adventure strips Tom Thumb, The Iron Fish and Red Rory began as Prose stories. During their run in the comic there were 85 different adventure strips.

List of prose stories

From the Beano's first issue up until 1955 the Beano contained prose stories. These were similar to other text stories found in older

story paper A story paper is a periodical publication similar to a literary magazine, but featuring illustrations and text stories, and aimed towards children and teenagers. Also known in Britain as "boys' weeklies", story papers were phenomenally popular ...

s and featured a prose story usually of one or two pages (they could be longer in the annuals) and often featured an illustration at the top of the page with the title of the prose story. A number of these prose stories went on to become adventure strips and some adventure strips even had prose story versions. During their lifetime in The Beano there were 79 different prose stories of which 15 also appeared as Adventure strips. These strips were Jack of Clubs, Tom Thumb, Little Noah's Ark, The Iron Fish, Red Rory of the Eagles, Sinbad the Sailor, Little Master of the Mighty Chang, The Bird Boy, The Wily Ways of Simple Simon, The Invisible Giant, The Hungry Goodwins, Tick Tock Timothy, Smarty Smokey, Prince on the Flying Horse and Follow the Secret Hand. The issue following the 75th Anniversary Special in 2013 introduced a new text story called Diary of an Ugly Kid, which disappeared later that year. In 2014 yet another appeared titled Diary of a Bash Street Kid.

List of Comic Idol runners-up

The following is a list of comic strips which appeared in The Beano during a Comic Idol or similar competition but did not win. Many of these strips appeared in annuals and Gordon Bennet went on to appear in The Beano a few years after coming runner up in a Comic Idol competition. Even though these strips did not win a Comic Idol competition many of them lasted longer than a number of other Beano comic strips such as

Alf Wit Over the years ''The Beano'' has had many different strips, ranging from comic strips to adventure strips to prose stories. Prose stories were the first to go, being phased out in 1955. Adventure strips were phased out in 1975, with the last on ...

which only lasted two issues. Phone-a-Fiend and Space Kidette are the only two strips on this list which appeared as one-offs. In 2014, it was called Beanotown's Got Talent.

References

External links

An outdated and incomplete list of ''The Beano'' comic strips
Paul Morris' blog
A list of the 100 longest-running ''The Beano'' comic strips
Comics UK {{DEFAULTSORT:Beano comic strips Comics anthologies The Beano British comics Beano

List of humorous Beano comic strips

List of Funsize Funnies

List of Beano adventure strips

List of prose stories

List of Comic Idol runners-up

See also

References

External links